"not esoteric mathematic theory"

This has to be one of the best introductions to a section on the assumptions for a statistical test I've ever seen:

"All parametric statistical procedures are inferential procedures (i.e., they make inferences about populations). Mathematics and logic dictate that inferences be based on assumptions, and so like any other parametric statistical technique, the MANOVA has assumptions with which scientists must be concerned. These assumptions are not esoteric mathematic theory but conditions of the data that must be assessed (and hopefully satisfied) before trying to interpret the results of a MANOVA."

page 253 of Reading and Understanding Multivariate Statistics by Grimm &Yarnold (1995), "Multivariate Analysis of Variance" chapter by Kevin P. Weinfurt.